At Irvine Contemporary is Introductions3, a group exhibition featuring works of thirteen recent MFA grads from art schools across the country. According to Gallery Director Martin Irvine, Introductions3 is the first show of its kind at a commercial gallery, since similar shows stick to regional artists; instead Irvine branched out and reviewed 300 emerging artists nationwide. The selections were narrowed to 60 before a panel of art collectors committed to the final 13 emerging artists, hailing from from schools such as the Cranbrook Academy, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the San Francisco Art Institute, among others.

The artists in Introductions3 were chosen for their professional-level quality without preference for medium. The selection panel sought artists who were pushing their chosen medium in new directions and asking good questions with their work. Additionally, Irvine states that art today “is all about context,” and that artists who show an awareness of contemporary art and fit well into that context have an advantage with collectors. While this show certainly piques one’s curiosity, much of the work in Introductions3 would greatly benefit from having a larger space to fill.

Several of the pieces in Introductions3 leave you wanting more. At first, I walked right by Erin Colleen Williams’ two pieces, Sonance Amplication Agent and Minnie Gramophone and Replacement Heart, possibly because they were so lifelike and reminiscent of a Thomas Edison exhibit at the American History Museum that I felt like I’d walked right by them once before as a child on a museum field trip. When I came back to them, I found myself wanting to see a whole room stocked full of these crazy inventions, as if walking into an inventor’s laboratory. One can see the potential energy in Williams’ creations, but viewing them in the context of a group show left me both underwhelmed and yearning for more.